The following is a transcription of two recordings I made on dates specified. Almost 2,500 words before 9am! Today is going to be a good day.
9/9/15
“My husband is so fucking jealous I
can’t even go to the toilet, can’t make a tinkle. My huband ran off with the
poolboy. I’ve got him by the shorthairs
with a pre-nup, pay through the nose that son-of-a-bitch. Thought I could trust
the man, I was wrong, for I have hemorrhoids to keep, and piles to go before I
sleep, and piles to go. Do you remember Chlamydia? The bucktooth lady? Ricky mohel? Is it tuna fish? Said the mohel, ‘It won’t be long now,’
shtooped her in the tuckas with a Remington 12 ‘cause he didn’t have a Mossberg,
<days money-oon>, Vidal Sassoon…”
“Can I get a cigarette?”
I get rolling papers and tobacco.
“Will it be difficult to apprehend
the culprit?” speaking to a police officer.
The police officer is there responding to prank phone caller. He needs a subpoena.
“One of my favorite shows recently
has been Docs Avenue Boys on Youtube. It’s
the best show you can possibly see.”
9/4/15
Speaking of public executions,
recording starts:
“…3 guys that need to be hanged,
charge people a hundred bucks, sliding scale. You’re making a living, show
proof of income, you know, you don’t got the money to pay…come on, come on in,”
Rick enters scene, he says, “500 to
10.”
“Yeah any word,” Jeff continues
dismissively.
“Might as well give the rich people…”
other guy trails off.
“Shtooped her in the tuckas with a
Remington 12 because he didn’t have a Mossberg, days money-oon, Vidal Sassoon,
Ralph Lauren, toe to toe, I put my money on the Jew.”
I ask, “What does that have to do
with B.B. King or Paul McCartney?”
“Well what I’m talking about is a
triple hanging to earn enough money to put people in good housing for the next
twenty years here in Buffalo.”
“And have beautiful hair!”
“It’s a big draw! The Arena wouldn’t hold it. It’s an outdoor event.”
“Hangings have always been outdoor
events, traditionally.”
“They rented out rooms so you could
see the hanging of the three Fair brothers behind city hall in 1825, that’s all
marshland back there, you have to go 30 feet down to bedrock beneath city hall,
it sits on pilons. And down at HSBC
tower, you have to go 80 feet down to the Lockport dolomite. But let’s forget topography for a
moment. Let’s concentrate on three nogoodniks. The Fair brothers. Nelson, Israel, and Isaac Fair; 25, 23, 21
years old respectively, known to their neighbors as swaggering toughs, named
their horses Jesus Christ, God Almighty.
Now, they owed a guy money, and wouldn’t pay him, decided to kill
him. In October of 1824 they hatched a
plot. February of 1825 they invited him
to a pig slaughter out at their property in the Boston hills. Now at that time there might have been 100
people out in that neck of the woods. It’s
woodland. And they owed John Love money,
he had a lien on their property and they decided to dispose of this problem diplomatically. So they invite him over, they have a drink
at the table, the youngest slips out the back, some excuse, gets a rifle, and
shoots John Love in the back. That does the
trick. He goes off to have a drink. The
other brothers pull out meat cleavers and go to work. You’ve been in pharmaceutical life?”
Affirmative.
“(so you know) it takes a little
while. (they think) we’ve got to chop
this guy up, he’s a little bit bigger than you, what do you weigh?”
190
“What do you weigh?” he asks Rick.
160
“So, in fact, it would take longer
to go to work on
you, there’s just
more to dismember, you’re a little leaner, a little taller, so it’d be real
work. Now do you see any men amongst us cut out for this kind of work? I mean the hacking part, not the shooting in
the back! There’s all kinds of guys who’ll
shoot you in the back! Look around you,
who would have the balls to…? (Enter)
Mr. Matt. William C. Matt had performed
this task upon an elderly businessman. <And
needs to falling asleep from Danamoora> sic.
Now the other guy, Mr. David P. Sweat ran down a couple state troopers,
kept running them over twenty times. He’s
fit for the holy work as well.”
At this point I interject, being
the drunk asshole, probably lost from that weird statement that I can’t really
even decipher from the recording despite its clear quality. “That’s what I was wondering, who would be
the executioner in these types of events, like, what is the qualification to be
an executioner?” Dumb question I know…
“Well, you’ve got to be good at it…”
“Efficient.”
“It’s a paying job! It’s hard work. You’ve got to weigh the guy…they
chopped up this poor guy!”
Rick says, “You’ve got to weigh the
guy and then you’ve got to have the right amount of (sand)bags so his neck
snaps. The sentence was often ‘hung by
the neck.’ You didn’t necessarily die. If you didn’t die you were free to go.
Unless it said ‘hung by the neck until dead.’”
“In which case you suffocate…”
understood.
“There were 22 capital offenses in
New York State before 1816.” Jeff continues, “All kinds of stuff. Well, anyhow, these guys ran afoul of the
law, chopped a guy up, rode around on his horse trying to collect all the money
he had out in the neighborhood. People (would)
ask, ‘Where’s John?’ ‘He’s on vacation.’ ‘Why are you on his horse?’ Shot the
fuck down. So the cops came in, they took them down to the joint which was
behind where we have the Central Library today.
Second City Courthouse is on the terrace there in 1816 they put up, it’s
Greek revival. And they were put on
trial in April of 1825, went on for a month, coroner came in, and witnesses,
like you see in the modern court. You
can see the documentation of this trial and because this was a famous trial,
these guys were on trial for their lives, the news spread in the newspapers of
the time. Here it is newly Erie County
but it used to be Niagara County, before it was Genesee County, but they carved
out Niagara from that, then they carve out Erie from that. So they’re out in Erie County there in 1825
they get convicted for their crime. And the judge says in sentencing, ‘I don’t
want to do this, but I’m compelled by the law, you’re going to hang by your
necks until you’re dead. I want you to
think about your mother, your father, children you’re leaving behind, people in
this community you’ve harmed.’
On June 17th 1825 these
three fucks in robes, in hoods, slippers, they walk them down from the jail,
down to the gallows, behind where we have City Hall, it was Niagara Square at
the time, and the wealthy people lived there, so this was set up right behind
their homes. The founding fathers of the city lived right there: General Burke
lived there, Samuel Wilkeson had a home there…They took them down for
execution. There were 2,400 people living
in Buffalo at that time, in the village, it wasn’t a city yet, it wasn’t
incorporated, 2,400 by the listings. People came from near and from far to observe
this event. How many people do you think
attended this?”
5,000.
Come on.
10,000. 20,000. 40,000
“They estimate the crowd between 20
and 30 thousand. Like Robert Grey came down to Lafayette Square(?), so
everybody rented out the top floors of their joints so they could see
this. How many vendors at a show like
this? Come on! Didn’t you ever go on tour motherfucker? What did
the Grateful Dead draw? How many whores?
And of what caliber? You got some for 5,
some for 50, depends how they look! How
many pickpockets? How many overt killers
in the crowd looking to rob you blind, break your fucking head open, steal your
daughter…?”
I don’t answer this. Jeff goes away. Comes back.
“I wonder about these things,” he
says.
“What?” I retort, “How many criminals
in a crowd (versus) spectators?”
“Look man, while we sit here, at Dannemora
prison, is a maximum security prison, it’s about $100,000 a year…<recording breaks
off briefly, bus> and the guys that they have there have performed such
terrible acts in this world; it’s more than halitosis, it’s more than people
not liking you on the porch, or having a beef with your girl. These people chop
you up. They’re killers. They don’t give a fuck. Something’s wrong with their
head. Comes out of your pocket. It’s really not fair. It’s not fair when these
drug gangs run wild over there, you need a fucking army to wipe them out. The local police can’t take care of this. It’s
a military problem, really is.
“Well, it’s to less of an extent
that they don’t require the military. It’s
not a state of national emergency (or they would hire heavy guns).”
“Look, they perform as ISIS. What they do is recruit kids and tell them,
look, you kill this guy. They pick you out of a crowd, and a 13 year old will
come and plug you, and you’re ruined for the rest of your life if you survive,
and you’ll discover in short order the 13 year old might spend the next 4 or 5
years in jail with children and be released and his records will be sealed.
Having learned how to murder people in cold blood, he has moved up in the
world, he knows more about the criminal life, having studied in prison how to
get away with it, the idea is to get away with it. That’s the idea.”
Forward again to 9/9/15
“American business was doing
business with Hitler in the 30’s”
I reference
Fanta, the Coca-Cola subsidiary,
by singing the
jingle.
“IBM did their computer work for
them. Well they’re monsters, and the
Bush family is in it up to their neck. Capitalists. It’s immoral. Some people
have different morals and ethics, that’s why people fight.”
“I’ve been having anxiety lately,
been burning the candle on both ends.
What do you do to deal with anxiety? Sleep?”
“Well…the bicycle. And stretching,
you’ve got to keep the blood flowing.
You know, because you’re going to be plagued by this throughout your
existence. It’s part of the nature.
Because there really is threat to existence. Not from the people around you.
Hope to God you’ll refrain from picking fights with those people, because that’s
what you’ve been doing recently. Yeah,
when you get drunk, you start lashing out.”
“What?” Incredulous.
“Oh yeah. People don’t like it. They comment upon this. People never met you
before wonder, what’s this guy doing?”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You’ve got to be aware of
these things.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Well a lot of the hostility comes
out when people are drunk. See any vulnerability or anything they can pick on,
especially when it doesn’t have anything to do with nothing. Has something to
do with what’s going on inside of you. You see any flaw in the other, what you
think it is, instead you’re going to ask them about it, you don’t even know who
you’re talking to. Somebody will just get up and pound the shit out of you. (like)
‘what the fuck you talking about?’ That’s the real world! Got to be careful with that. You’re a nice guy, you’ve got a brain in your
head, just have to find something to do with your time that you like, otherwise
you’ll be miserable. And you’ve got to
make it succeed. And figure out a way to do that in the real world. You want to spend the rest of your time
pretending it ain’t? It’s a very real
world. Look at the big business down
here. The delivery of beer. Whiskey. That’s the primary function of this street
(Allen).”
“I produce my own beer.”
“Self-reliance!”
“I’ve produced my own gin too at
one point.”
“Good! Juniper berries.”
“Yes! That’s the key! Key ingredient. Tastes good
too, the good stuff, the homemade stuff, it comes out of solution, it
emulsifies, the chemicals, the essential oils are carried through the
process. When you dilute the solution
with water it emulsifies the active chemicals in the juniper that you get from
the juniper berry, it’s called the Ouzo effect.
The Ouzo effect, like if you’ve ever had a glass of Sambuca, and put
Sambuca on the rocks, it gets cloudy, that’s the Ouzo effect, that’s the
essential oils coming out of solution and emulsifying, micro-particles, so it
looks cloudy, they’re individual chemical micelles that you’d have in your own
stomach even.”
“You should get involved with some
of the local brewers and makers of spirits, it’s going on in Buffalo now. The biggest thing and the most important
thing in that racket: the bottle.”
“Yeah, the packaging.
Marketing. Totally.”
“The sizzle, not the steak. It’s
overweening. He says they need a
subpoena, Amanda!”
“I could be nicer to people. I haven’t been laid in a while. I think that’s part of it.”
“Well, yeah, but you’ve got to keep
in mind any of these guys you see down here your age, you see there’s a
multitude of men, and they have a variety of attitudes toward women. And many
of the attitudes that they have, they reinforce in their frustration, (which in
effect) drives women further and further away from them, cause they want
nothing to do with this madness. All this tough guy shit. You know, a woman’s more capable of killing
you than I am. Cause she can get you to go anywhere, do anything, you wouldn’t
even see it coming.”
“That’s the madness I know, that’s
why keep women at an arm’s length normally because I know the risks that are
involved, but at the same time there’s like this push-pull.”
“You’ve got to come to terms with
it! It goes on and on and on and on… Doesn’t end. I’ve had a hard time with these things too,
believe me. But balance, the practice of the arts…will give you something to do
with your time.”
“Beautiful day downtown Allentown!”
Another local guy.
“Yeah, temperature’s nice today,
air’s good,” I say.
“Yeah, I bet there’s been a lot of
pollutants in the air the past few days,” Jeff says what I’m thinking.
“Hazy. There was a power outage at South Campus
today, UB South Campus. They cancelled
classes. They never cancel classes, but
there was just like apparently a massive power outage at the campus. I don’t
know, I just heard it on the radio earlier today. Weird things happening!”
“Lot of people on the planet, man.”
